RICHMOND  Virginia Democrats renewed their demands Monday that Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli resign after the Republican gubernatorial candidate belatedly disclosed about $13,000 worth of gifts on Friday that he claimed he forgot to note in four years worth of economic disclosure reports.

They were not as insistent, however, that their own nominee, Terry McAuliffe, match Mr. Cuccinellis complete income tax disclosure earlier this month with one of his own.

State Sen. A. Donald McEachin and Delegate David J. Toscano responded in a conference call to Mr. Cuccinellis revelation Friday afternoon that he failed to report five gifts from 2009 through last year. He spoke to a handful of mostly print journalists who had agreed not to broadcast any audio or video recordings of the conference and use them only to augment the accuracy of their own notes.

Three of them were from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of troubled nutritional supplement maker Star Scientific and a political contributor to Mr. Cuccinelli. They included a $3,000 vacation stay and $1,500 Thanksgiving retreat and dinner at Mr. Williams Smith Mountain Lake vacation home.

Mr. Cuccinelli also made a nominal revision to his 2011 filing to show that $6,711 worth of nutritional supplements he received that year came from Star Scientific, not from Mr. Williams as he had previously reported.

The annual reports listing their business interests, assets, honoraria and gifts are required of elected officials each January under Virginia law. A deliberate violation is a misdemeanor, but an unintended error or omission is not an offense.

oh bull, I highly doubt they are talking about being invited to a house party for Thanksgiving. And as a stinking Captain in the JAG we had a “briefing” about not accepting gifts. So, the ass should know to avoid the appearance of impropriety, if he wants to go to the beach he should pay his freight, that is what I am saying.

Smith Mountain Lake is a big, man-made lake that extends across Franklin and Bedford counties in VA. It was formed when Appalachian Power Company built a dam for power generation. It's quite popular in these parts.

Apparently, the RATs have once again accomplished their goal of destroying "the enemy" - not in the realm of ideas, but in gutter politics. They know that all they have to do is get the Republican to disclose something their own guy won't do - correction - won't have to do.

Did everyone miss this line in the story?

"They were not as insistent, however, that their own nominee, Terry McAuliffe, match Mr. Cuccinellis complete income tax disclosure earlier this month with one of his own."

The only reason they demanded Cuccinelli's tax records was so they could go dumpster diving for dirt. Voila! They found something! And now they can sit back and let all the Conservatives chew Cuccinellis legs off, because WE demand HONOR. We demand PURITY. And the RATs sit back and laugh at us.

VA Republicans rarely win much of anything other than U.S. House seats anyway. I never get enthusiastic about some potential chance to win in VA. The GOP always seems to leave us flat there. But, MD, they can’t even find a serious candidate in statewide races.

21
posted on 04/30/2013 7:08:20 AM PDT
by Theodore R.
("Hey, the American people must all be crazy out there!")

Sad thing is, gift-giving notwithstanding, we’ll never be able to persuade good people to get into politics. Who the heck would want the anal exam they’ll get from the likes of DemocRAT dumpster divers? Much less what the Chicago crowd would put their family through?

Our people have to learn a simple fact, and that is that they will be under scrutiny 24/7 by the 'Rat dirt machine. So even an appearance of impropriety will get built up into a major scandal. Rule number one is, don't accept "gifts", don't accept "free money" for personal use. Pay your way and earn what you get.

It isn't fair and it is a double standard, of course, but it's the way it is in today's political world. The 'Rats, of course, get a pass. In fact, when a 'Rat breaks the law, it helps them. People think they're "cool", or "a playah".

It isn't fair and it is a double standard, of course, but it's the way it is in today's political world. The 'Rats, of course, get a pass. In fact, when a 'Rat breaks the law, it helps them. People think they're "cool", or "a playah".

A sad truth indeed. I'm sure the long knives are out for Ted Cruz as well, but in his case, the RATs can probably just sit back and let the McCains eat one of their own. :-/

Virginia has pretty weak ethics rules. They rely simply on full disclosure. That way, the voters can decide whether they think you are being influenced or not.

There has been some push to change this, but neither party really cares to do so. And yes, even some of our “good” guys tend to be gifted a lot more than the ordinary folks.

I can’t imagine anybody would pay $6000 for supplements, so I guess this is a case where the company has excess stock and sends it out to people, and it just has a very high retail value, and that’s what you file.

Still, it would be nice if our politicians just said no.

And of course, in Virgina even a willful violation of this law is a misdemeanor, like running a red light. If it is inadvertent, there is no penalty at all for late disclosure.

The democrats have been working over time with the media trying to take down Ken. They’ve opened a second front with McDonnell, leaking information about an FBI probe that the liberal unethical Obama administration won’t “confirm or deny”, thus leaving it hanging. But again, if you don’t hang around with people giving you gifts, it is harder to launch unfounded accusations at you.

Spot on. What’s the incentive for a successful conservative to leave his comfortable six figure job/life and be dragged through the dirt, not only by the opposition, but by hyperpure conservatives who’ve never run for nor won a seat in their lives.

Utter goofs. If this is all they’ve got on Cucinelli he’s still a great candidate. Sometimes I suspect many of the purists are plants. Their entire goal is to whip up the base against a good candidate.

Why don’t they protest McAuliffe’s entire career as a crony capitalist and start a campaign to force him to open his records? He get’s a free pass. That’s dumb.

“Our people have to learn a simple fact, and that is that they will be under scrutiny 24/7 by the ‘Rat dirt machine. So even an appearance of impropriety will get built up into a major scandal. Rule number one is, don’t accept “gifts”, don’t accept “free money” for personal use. Pay your way and earn what you get.”

I think we need to aproche this ongoing double standard in a different way. Face up to it head on and call them hypocrites.

So true...
When my hubs was in a position to get compted for a $1500/night hotel room in New Orleans for three nights, we had to say no thanks and pay for it ourselves because of concerns for future investigations... and we could ill-afford the expense.

We can certainly call them on their double standard and I agree we should. But we should also be aware that our failings will be magnified beyond proportion so we should seek to minimize those. If we don’t hand our enemies a sword they will be less likely to chop us up.

“We can certainly call them on their double standard and I agree we should. But we should also be aware that our failings will be magnified beyond proportion so we should seek to minimize those. If we dont hand our enemies a sword they will be less likely to chop us up.”

I agree, but do you really think there are prefect men out there let alone enough of them to fill our political needs?

Not perfect, but smart enough to know that we shouldn't give our opponents any more ammunition to use against us. It doesn't have to be hard. What part of “don't take any money” is hard to understand? Same with “don't take any gifts”. Surely we can run candidates who have worked an honest living and not bagged expensive gifts from anyone. Now, running such people is not guarantee of victory, and, given today's political climate, it might even be a hindrance, because people will make fun of honest men, and if a scumbag ‘Rat is running the media will find some way to applaud their debauchery, but at least you won't be seeing stories like the one posted at the start of this thread.

What tacky friends you have. When I invite people to come and stay with me, I pay, when they invite me to go stay with them, they pay. I guess you can’t help your world view since you have such classless friends.

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